


You Have To Fall Before You Can Fly

by pinstripedJackalope



Category: Shadowhunters (TV), The Mortal Instruments Series - Cassandra Clare, The Shadowhunter Chronicles - All Media Types, The Shadowhunter Chronicles - Cassandra Clare
Genre: Fights, Forgiveness, Love, M/M, Magnus Bane Has Wings, Making Up, Trust, Wingfic, Wings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-13
Updated: 2020-12-13
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:01:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28042845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pinstripedJackalope/pseuds/pinstripedJackalope
Summary: Just a little fic about trust, love, and forgiveness.
Relationships: Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood
Comments: 4
Kudos: 28
Collections: The Malec Secret Santa - Edition 2020





	You Have To Fall Before You Can Fly

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sian265](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sian265/gifts).



> Hi Sian265! Here's your Malec secret santa gift! Hope you like it!

“For the love of—everybody stop!”

Oh, thank _god_. Magnus schools his face into a bored expression, letting go of Alec’s shoulders and leaning nonchalantly back against the institute wall, spreading his wings to either side as he goes. He doesn’t move from that position as Izzy stalks up to the two of them, hands on her hips. She stops right in front of him, her eye twitching as she stares between him and her brother.

Alec huffs, crossing his arms over his chest. Magnus, meanwhile, delicately raises an eyebrow. “Yes, Isabelle dear?” he asks.

“Why,” she says, her glare sharpening until Magnus almost wants to cringe away from it, “are you two having such a _difficult time_ with such _simple instructions_.”

Alec huffs again, a sound like a charging bull might make before it gores some unwitting civilian. He’s frustrated, has been frustrated all day, and seems to be two seconds away from taking it out on anything or anyone within reach. Understandable—Magnus is frustrated, too, if he’s being honest. He, however, will be the bigger man. He’ll keep his cool. Because that’s what he does—he’s stood strong in the face of stubborn shadowhunters for longer than Alec has been alive, and he’s not about to stop now.

Magnus forces a smile onto his face. “We’re working on it,” he says, which both is and isn’t a lie. They’re working on the choreography right now, yes, but that isn’t the reason they’re having such a hard time with it. That owes more to the fact that they haven’t said more than two words to each other since the day began.

Izzy drags her hands down her face. “We don’t have time for this. We only have so much time before the ceremony—”

And there she goes, off ranting about the state of the preparations and the dancers and all the effort she’s put in to make this work and _are you two even listening to me?_

Magnus shakes himself. “Of course, dear,” he says. “Why don’t Alex—” He cuts himself off. He can’t call Alec by his full name right now, they’re fighting. Which is fine, a fight isn’t the end of the world, but Alec had asked for space yesterday and now Magnus is all on the wrong foot. He corrects, saying instead, “Why don’t your brother and I just… try again, hm?”

Izzy scrutinizes them for a long moment. “Alec?” she says. “Are you willing to try again?”

Alec doesn’t say anything for a long moment. Magnus’s heart, despite his attempts not to let it, sinks down to his knees. They’re fighting, yes—over some petty squabble that turned realer in the heat of the moment than either of them meant it to—but Alec is as stubborn as they come. If even he can’t push through this to learn the choreography for the ceremony, then maybe they shouldn’t be here at all. 

Then Alec sighs, a heavy sound, and says, “One more time.”

So they go one more time. They start on the ground, standing opposite each other—they’ll take off at a run and meet in the middle and, if all goes well, Alec will lift Magnus with two hands on his waist and Magnus will spread his wings and get off the ground and lift Alec in turn and they’ll begin the aerial part of the dance and—

—and—

—Magnus stops at the last second, wings flaring out at his sides, flapping in agitation. “What is it?” he asks, frowning at Alec. 

Alec frowns back at him. “What do you mean? You’re the one who stopped,” he says. 

“I stopped because you looked off.”

“I was concentrating on doing my part. What do you want from me, a prince charming smile?”

“No, but I would like to know that I’m not going to get _thrown to the ground_.”

“Hey, I’m doing my part, it’s _you_ who isn’t doing yours—”

Magnus puffs up, his feathers fluffing outward as he steps forward to lean into Alec’s space. Before he can get there, however, Izzy is between them, a hand planted on each of their chests. 

“Okay, okay, jesus. Cool down, guys,” she says. 

Alec grunts, pushing away from her. He doesn’t say anything else, just goes to pick up his jacket and walks away from the courtyard, his strides long and his gaze deadly, shadowhunters and downworlders alike stepping quickly out of his way.

“Great,” Izzy mutters. Then she turns on Magnus, her gaze piercing. “You wanna tell me what all of that was about?”

Magnus snorts, contemplating summoning up a martini. “Nothing you need to worry about,” he says, closing his eyes for a long moment. 

Izzy snorts. “Apparently it is. You two are going to ruin the whole shindig at this rate. All that work both of you have put in to get the shadowhunters and the downworlders to work together and suddenly you two are on the outs?”

“So it would seem,” Magnus says, and normally he doesn’t feel his age but suddenly he’s weighed down by all the many centuries he’s been alive. He gives Izzy a weak smile and wanders away, heading toward home with his shoulders slumped and his wings all but dragging on the ground. 

“Hey! We’ll pick it up again early tomorrow, okay?” Izzy calls after him. He raises one bejeweled hand in acknowledgment before gesturing a portal into existence. Tomorrow… ugh. Tomorrow is a problem for Future Magnus. Right Now Magnus, in the meantime, is going to go home and get spectacularly drunk and wallow in self-pity for a good long while. 

Or at least he intends to. When he arrives at the loft and spies a pair of Alec’s spare gloves sitting on the coffee table, however, all the energy goes out of him. He groans, suddenly exhausted, and goes to plant himself face-down in bed instead, closing his eyes against the light of the setting sun. He just… this fight. It’s not all his fault, really—maybe twenty percent of it is his fault—but he still feels _bad_ about it. Even twenty percent is too damn much, and he knows that he said a few things that hurt Alec. He just… he doesn’t know how to bridge the gap now that it’s here. Now that Alec has pulled back. 

_It was never going to last_ , says a snipped little voice in his head. He grunts, rolling over and planting a pillow over his face. It doesn’t stop the voice, which sounds like a bastardized version of Ragnor, from then saying, _he_ _’s a shadowhunter—what did you really expect_?

He doesn’t know. All he knows is that Alec… Alec has always been different. Or so he thought. But maybe… god, could it be wishful thinking? He doesn’t want it to be, but fuck, what if it is? What if this is just Camille all over again, and he’s deluded himself into thinking that something is different about Alec when it isn’t? What if—?

He twitches, shaken from the spiral of his thoughts by his wards pinging to let him know that Alec is on his way up. 

Magnus frowns. That… can’t be right. Alec shouldn’t be here—they’re fighting, after all. He said it himself not two days ago, he was going to stay at the Institute for a few days to get some space. 

Someone clearly hasn’t gotten the memo. With a grunt, Magnus pries himself up off his bed and heads to the door. He’s half tempted to make Alec stand outside for a few minutes just to be petty, but he doesn’t want to do that, he finds. For as off as they’ve been lately, he _misses_ Alec. And whatever Alec is here for, it must be important. Right? 

Magnus bites the inside of his cheek, schooling his face into neutrality as he buzzes Alec up before Alec can even touch the buzzer. He waits until he can feel Alec on the other side of the door, brushing up against his inner wards, before he opens it in one swift motion.

“How can I help you?” he asks, not quite in his High Warlock voice but close. 

Alec, standing on the other side of the door with his fists shoved in the pockets of his jacket, doesn’t meet his eyes. “I was just… I thought…” He takes a deep breath, raising his eyes. “I wanted to know if you would take a walk with me.”

Magnus blinks. That’s… not what he expected. But Alec seems sincere, if a little awkward. This is an olive branch—he’s trying. Honestly trying. Magnus can’t deny him something as simple as a walk—he nods, snapping a jacket of his own onto his shoulders. He gestures for Alec to lead the way.

Alec does, after hesitating a moment more on Magnus’s doorstep. Then he heads back down the stairs, walking briskly out the door and taking off down the street.

He seems to have a destination in mind, as he doesn’t say a word as they walk. Magnus matches his long strides, willing to wait him out. Alec isn’t the greatest with words at the best of times, really. He’s honest, blunt—it’s one of the things that Magnus generally finds charming about him. Right now, however, it’s just serving to make him feel more distant from the man he loves.

They walk for nearly twenty minutes before Alec comes to a stop at a construction site of all things. He nods to Magnus before he steps inside the bare bones of the building, beginning to climb up half-finished stairs. Magnus frowns and follows, his uncertainty growing.

They are fifteen stories up before Alec comes to a stop, walking out across a bare floor toward the side of the room, where holes for floor-to-ceiling windows wait for glass. The sun has fully set and the moon is out by the time they settle, side by side, on the ledge. Alec pauses there for a long moment, fiddling with the edge of his jacket as he collects his thoughts. The jacket conceals no fewer than three weapons and a stele, Magnus knows—another part of Alec that he’s become familiar with. Always and forever a shadowhunter, guarded body and mind. Magnus had thought they were making progress with Alec’s need to protect himself, protect his heart, but then the fight and… well. 

He clears his throat, looking at Alec and waiting for him to speak. Finally he does, his voice low in the night. 

“It’s not that I don’t trust you,” he says. Straight to the point, to the heart of the issue between them. “If that’s what you thought.”

“I was beginning to wonder, yes,” Magnus says, biting his lip. Then, making up his mind, he asks, “Would you like to tell me what’s on your mind?”

“I trust you,” Alec says, and the certainty in his voice is a balm to Magnus’s troubled soul. “I do. It’s… I just…”

“I hurt you,” Magnus says. He knows he did. That isn’t up for debate.

Alec, however, only shrugs. “Not before I hurt you, first,” he says. He stares up at the moon, worrying his lip between his teeth. “I wanted to apologize for that. I was out of line.”

Oh. Magnus blinks, hard, and turns out toward the sky as well. There aren’t many stars, not with the lights of the city so strong around them, but the view is nice all the same. “You weren’t the only one,” he says. He breathes slowly out. “This ceremony… it’s been putting pressure on all of us.”

“Yeah,” Alec says, and snorts a little. “Izzy’s been a nightmare.”

Magnus smiles. “But you love her anyway.”

“I do. And I…”

He pauses again, bunching his fist around the seam of his jacket. Then he blows out between his teeth, and releases it to scrub a hand over his face. “There’s just so much riding on this ceremony,” he says. “For the downworld in particular. If we can’t… if I can’t… I just feel like I keep screwing everything up.”

_Oh_. This whole _space_ thing wasn’t Alec needing distance. It was Alec feeling like he messed up and pulling back. Magnus nearly laughs when he realizes that Alec, who has never had a romantic relationship before Magnus, has probably never had a fight like this before, either. He’s fumbling in the dark, not sure how to fix things, frustrated with himself more than anything. 

Well, that won’t do. Magnus hums, pushing himself to his feet and holding out his hand.

“Here… take my hand,” he says. Alec does. Slowly, tentatively. Magnus can feel tension in Alec’s muscles, the tightness in his shoulders thrumming all the way down to his fingertips. Still, he doesn’t pull back.

Magnus nods, pleased. “You trust me,” he says.

“I do,” Alec says, and frowns. “What are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking that it’s okay. There’s no one watching us right now. There’s nothing riding on it. If you trust me, and I trust you… then let’s do this. Right here and right now.”

Alec’s eyes flick up from their entwined fingers to meet Magnus’s gaze. And Magnus… god. He can see the determination, the strength, that made him fall in love with Alec in the first place. He’s got _fire_ in his eyes, blazing and brilliant.

“You want to jump from a building together?” he asks, and there’s a laugh on his tongue.

Magnus grins. “Why not?” he asks.

And Alec… when he grins back, he does it with his entire body, relief at knowing that he’s been forgiven for his part in their fight clear in his eyes. He was scared, that was all—and Magnus wants him to know that he never has anything to be scared of. He takes Alec’s hand and raises his knuckles to his own lips, pressing a kiss there. Then, as Alec laughs, he turns toward the ledge and they both step off in sync.

Together, they fall. And together… together they fly.

**Author's Note:**

> Cheers, everyone!


End file.
